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Marvel’s Midnight Suns marks its three year anniversary today.
Firaxis’ brave venture into the Marvel license came out of left field, but by all accounts deserved better than it got. While it was critically well-received, the game was not able to recover from poor sales at launch. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
The Midnight Suns We Originally Got
The Midnight Suns, originally called the Midnight Sons, are a superhero team that brought together the comic book company’s supernatural superheroes and antiheroes.
These teams almost always included the vampire hunter Blade, the pseudo-vampire Morbius, and the Ghost Rider. And from the very start, they faced a demonic entity called Lilith.
These are all fascinating stories with unique characters, but they obviously didn’t include more recognizable characters today like Deadpool or the X-Men. And this is where Firaxis made some brave choices.
How Do You Bring The Suns Back 30 Years Later?
The Midnight Sons comics originally came out in the early 1990s, with characters that go even farther back to the 1970s. While Marvel’s movies took the bold step of introducing new heroes for the public to decide to adopt or reject, Firaxis played it safe.
They adapted the story to add more recognizable characters in modern comics, as well as some Avengers and X-Men. Founding member Morbius was himself relegated to DLC.
On the gameplay front, Firaxis also went out of their comfort zone. Instead of adopting XCOM’s strategy gameplay wholesale, Firaxis employed a deck building gameplay system, to give characters unpredictable, but often spectacular, combat encounters.
What Went Wrong For Midnight Suns?
Most gamers will remember the game launching with technical issues, but that can’t account for everything. Many other games were able to bounce back after a few patches.
One could argue that Marvel and Firaxis may have had lofty expectations for a small niche. But the revival of RTS classics after its release, like Company of Heroes 3 and Age of Mythology: Retold, suggests otherwise.
One big issue going against it was came too close to heavyweight AAAs, like Pokémon Scarlet and Violet and God of War: Ragnarok.
Lastly, this game may have simply been the victim of bad timing, as it released in the middle of a slump for Marvel games in general.
Today, Marvel Snap and Marvel Rivals have been keeping fans happy (for now). But it didn’t all quite come together for Marvel’s Midnight Suns. Firaxis is unlikely to venture in this direction again, but they still deserve credit for making an unexpected addition to the Marvel video game library.
